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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The photo above of what appears to be a wax dying Christ was taken on a trip to Europe in 1994. I am not sure where, but might well have been Austria or Germany. If anybody knows from whence it came, we would be most grateful if you'd let us know! Email joanna [at] morbidanatomymuseum [dot] org with any leads!

Sunday, July 26, 2015

We have many wonderful goings on this week at Morbid Anatomy, but first, a special alert: Morbid Anatomy is currently seeking a 2011 or later model Macbook laptop in order to upgrade our A/V system. Donor will receive a one-year membership. If you can help, please email cristina [at] morbidanatomymuseum.org!

AND: to all you collectors out there: if you are interested in participating in our Dilettanti Society show and tell happy hour (here for previous incarnation), please email info@morbidanatomymuseum.org, subject line: Dilettanti!

If you want to avoid sold out events, and get early access to our August 30 flea market, become a member today! Besides early entry and advance notice of events, members also enjoy discounted admissions and unlimited free museum entry. Find out more here.

The Dilettanti Society Happy Hour Presented by Art in the Age: Cocktails and Show and Tell in the Morbid Anatomy Library: Prepared Skulls of Tribal Oceanic and African Culture with Special Guest Cole Harrell POSTPONED Thursday, July 30th, 6pm - 8pm, $12 for members. Tickets and more info here.

The Even More Disturbing and Absurd World of Medical Patents: An Illustrated Lecture with Eric Indin, Registered Patent Attorney. Thursday, July 30th, 8pm - 10pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

SAVE THE DATE First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession, Sunday, August 16Currently seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--responding to the ideas relating to the Gowanus Canal or saints. More here.

Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class, One or Two Headed with Divya AnantharamanSaturday, September 12th, 10pm - 6 pm, $120. Tickets and more info here.

The Dilettanti Society Happy Hour Presented by Art in the Age: Cocktails and Show and Tell in the Morbid Anatomy Library: Prepared Skulls of Tribal Oceanic and African Culture with Special Guest Cole Harrell POSTPONED Thursday, July 30th, 6pm - 8pm, $12 for members. Tickets and more info here.

The Even More Disturbing and Absurd World of Medical Patents: An Illustrated Lecture with Eric Indin, Registered Patent Attorney. Thursday, July 30th, 8pm - 10pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

Midcentury Stereopanorama with Eric Drysdale: Look and see the 1950s in 3-D!Thursday, August 13th, 8pm, $20, Tickets (and more info) here.

SAVE THE DATE First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant and Procession, Sunday, August 16Currently seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--responding to the ideas relating to the Gowanus Canal or saints. More here.

The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell: A Memoir: An Illustrated Lecture with Marc HartzmanWednesday, August 19th, 8pm, $8, Tickets (and more info) here.

Book Party for "The Zombie of Great Peru," by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois, translated by Doug SkinnerThursday, August 20th, 8pm, $5, Tickets (and more info) here.

Is empathy innate? Are we all born with the ability to identify with the emotions of others, to feel someone else’s pain? Today’s media is chock full of stories about experiments in neuroscience and child psychology that seem to show that the emergence and growth of the ability to empathize is a natural part of human psychological development, present even in toddlers.

Yet human beings periodically commit terrible acts of cruelty and violence, and are often indifferent to suffering. What if the development of empathy is a precious and fragile cultural accomplishment, something that has developed in fits and starts over time, in certain historical moments, in certain places, among certain people? Maybe most people have the ability to empathize, but what if empathy is a set of practices and beliefs that have to be learned and cultivated in order for individuals to exercise it? Those practices and beliefs would, of necessity, only fully develop in a society that has come to place a high value on empathy, that formally and informally rewards empathic behavior and punishes cruelty and indifference, a society that devotes resources to teaching, rehearsing and developing methods of empathy.

How to Kill Animals Humanelyis a relic of the history of empathy. English-speaking people originally used the terms “human” and “humane” interchangeably, merely to distinguish human beings from other “brute” animal species. Sometime in the early 18th century, “humane” began to have a special use: to denote a compassionate, caring attitude toward the suffering of other humans and animals, a profound sensitivity that was both a moral obligation and a psychological condition. The word “humane” increasingly came to be used in opposition to “inhumane,” a term that was applied to acts of cruelty to other living beings, and to the people who took pleasure in inflicting suffering or who were just callously indifferent. In the 19th century, “humane” societies were founded to “prevent cruelty,” first to animals (and later to children), first in Great Britain and then in the United States.

This pamphlet, a publication of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), is both a polemic against “needless cruelty” and a handy guide for those who are obliged to slaughter animals for food, medical research, or—in the case of injured or ailing animals—for purposes of euthanasia. “If you must kill them, do it without cruelty. Every animal has a right to justice and protection at the hands of the superior animal—man….” (This was very unlike contemporary antivivisectionism and vegetarianism, and later People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which absolutely opposed the slaughter of animals, and which criticized the very notion of human moral superiority.)

The author, Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, was a socially prominent surgeon and veterinarian, founder of the Boston Veterinary Institute, professor of applied zoology at Harvard, director of the MSPCA, and a man of many other interests. Being a veterinarian of longstanding practice, Dr. Slade was an expert on animal slaughter. In his little pamphlet he considers how “the Jews,” Germans, French and Dutch do their killing, but in the end makes his own recommendations, supplemented by helpful illustrations. Ways to kill animals “in the most humane manner possible,” must vary according to the varying anatomical structure of different species: horses, cows, dogs, pigs, cats, poultry, Dr. Slade tells us. Even fish should be killed humanely. For most mammals, the creature should receive powerful blows to the head with a mallet— precisely where depends on the species and individual beast—stunning the animal into unconsciousness, and then finishing it off with more blows or a bullet or a blast from a shotgun. Slade also considers other techniques to lessen the suffering, even chloroform. But he warns against “pithing” a method “commonly in vogue,” in which the “spinal cord is severed or punctured between the first and second bones of the neck.” Such an approach, he worries, is “undoubtedly attended by more suffering than other methods.”

Although humane techniques of slaughter may require some practice to get right and a bit more work, Slade argues, they can also improve “the wholesomeness of meat for food, and the market value of the animal slaughtered; there being no question as to the effects of torture, cruelty and fear upon the secretions, and if upon the secretions, necessarily upon the flesh.” He finishes the pamphlet with a long listing of the mission and accomplishments of the MSPCA (including the provision to Boston police stations of “hammers and hoods for killing horses mercifully”), followed by the Society’s “thirty-nine articles of faith” and a fee schedule for membership.

Read other How To… features from the NLM Collections here.Michael Sappol is a historian in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine.

Image List

How to Kill Animals Humanely, 1879. By D. D. Slade, M. D.

A longitudinal section of the skull of a horse. Original caption: Situation of the brain. Fig. 1

A drawing of a horse's head indicating where the humane stunning blow should fall. Original Caption The horse may be destroyed by blows upon the head, by the bullet, or by chloroform.1. by blows.– Having blindfolded the horse, the operator, armed with a heavy axe or hammer, should stand upon the side and to the front of the anumal, directing his blow to a point in the middle of a line drawn across the forehead from the dentere of the pit above the eye. See Fig. 2. One vigorous and well-directed blow will fell the animal, but the blow should be repeated to make destruction sure.

A longitudinal section of the skull of a cow.

A drawing of a cow's head indicating where the humane stunning blow should fall. Page 9…vessels, or by plunging a long and sharp-pointed knife into the heart and large blood-vessels at a point corresponding to the upper potion of the brisket, and just above the breast-bone.Failure to fell the animal at the first blow cannot be attributed to any difference in the anatomical structure of the part, but rather to the fact that the blow was ill-directed, almost invariably too low, that it was not sufficiently powerful, or that both of these faults were combined.

Friday, July 17, 2015

I have just been alerted to an exciting new touring historical anatomical museum now seeking funding. Their project description follows; you can find out more--and make a contribution!--by clicking here. You can visit them on Facebook here. Thanks so much to Morbid Anatomy Reporter at Large Eric Huang for sending this my way!

The "panoptikum," a display where the exhibits surround the observer, is one of the oldest kinds of fairground attractions.

Be it a waxwork display, sideshow or a traveling museum - the panoptikum was not only entertainment but also had an educational aspect.

With today's fun-fairs, carnivals and amusement parks focused of the thrill aspects of mega-rides the classic fun-fair museum show has faded into the background and is now seldom seen .

Paradox Sideshows has resurrected the traditional traveling museum show with Panoptikum -Grand Musée Anatomique but needs help in restoring and preserving one of the last remaining inventories of an historical aanatomy and medical museum.

The approximately 200 exhibits - including medical wax models (known traditionally as moulage), medical and pathological specimens, anatomical curiosities and much more - from which the vast majority has an age of more than 80 years, are unique and rare.
In their restored and conserved status they are a historic artifacts of both the fairground and medical education.

It is all the more pleasing that these historical rarities be on public display and not - as various other pieces of this kind - in the basements of private collectors or buried in the archives of medical institutions.

In 2014 Paradox Sideshows began to again present some of these exhibits to the public at festivals and fairs.

The long-term preservation of the Panoptikum: Grand Musée Anatomique is in need of active support!

Although many of the museum exhibits are in an unusually good condition for their age there are many that need much more work for restoration and preservation. That the costly restoration can be achieved by museum admission fees alone seems unlikely..

For this reason we have decided to create fund-raising web-page, just as numerous cultural museums and companies have done, and offer the opportunity to provide financial support of a long-term existence of Panoptikum -Grand Musée Anatomique.

As important as supporting the traveling museum Panoptikum via "online crowd funding"is traditional "live crowd funding", that is to say, people visiting the museum at fairs and festivals during the season 2015 and beyond. Only in this way can this historical fairground exhibit be preserved for future generations.

The Panoptikum -Grand Musée Anatomique is presented by PARADOX SIDESHOW. As one of the last great sideshow companies in Europe, PARADOX SIDESHOW & MISTER MILLER'S SHOW preserves and presents the living tradition of classic fairground sideshows, variety entertainments and oddity exhibits.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

The First Annual Morbid Anatomy Saint Florian Gowanus Pageant Call for Works

Sunday, August 16th

Call for works now ended. You can see full lineup and details here and below. Tickets can be found here.

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

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TALKS:--E. P. Bell (graduate student, Rutgers University) tracing the roots of this lost ritual and how it was discovered--Forensic Pathologist Jay Stahl-Herz, MD on the post-mortem challenges presented by bodies found in water--Ksenya Malina on processional banners used by members of lay confraternity orders in medieval and Renaissance Italy--AMNH's Erin Chapman with "A Short Illustrated Bestiary of the Gowanus"--Lady Ayea on the complexities involved in finding the right patron saint for sideshow performers with sword swallowing demonstration--Urban explorer Will Ellis (Abandoned NYC) about The Batcave, a famous Gowanus abandoned space--Professor Amy Herzog: TBA

FILMS--Short films curated by Imagine Science Films at the intersections of art, science and the grotesque--Jonah Patrick King's film "the Dowsers," which follows a New Age activist cult who worship water in a world where it has been privatized--Guilherme Marcondes' film Caveirão, an urban fable about ghost in abandoned outskirts of Sao Paulo--Nicole Antebi's film Riparianism, an animated film which re-imagines a national anthem around the "most" polluted waterways in this country

MUSIC--Comedian and musician Jessica Delfino with a stirring rendition of "Ghosts of Oysters Past"--Song by Kim Boekbinder

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Original Call for Works:

We are seeking short pieces--talks, performances, screenings, spectacles--for Gowanus Canal and Saint-themed event taking place on Sunday August 16th to benefit the Morbid Anatomy Museum.

On Sunday, August 16th, please join us for what we hope will be the first annual pageant honoring Saint Florian, patron saint of flooding and firemen. Gowanus residents are keenly aware that our livelihoods rely on the Gowanus Canal not overflowing its banks. By creating a new ritual to honor and assuage Saint Florian, we can both draw attention to this predicament and develop new rituals to serve as a basis for a new community, all with a sense of whimsy and spectacle.

The pageant will begin with a procession in which we will carry a papier mâché effigy of The Saint along with (we hope) a band from the museum to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Court on Union Street (about a 10 minute walk). A few words will be said about the ritual, and our new genesis myth for the Gowanus will be articulated.

At the Shuffleboard Court, a fictional graduate student will present a short illustrated lecture tracing the pageant back to a its also fictional 19th century Gowanus roots. Following will be a Gowanus-themed variety show with a number of short presentations and performances, and a party where guests are invited to come in costumes inspired by ideas of the Gowanus.

This is a call for short works for the party. Pieces should run 5-20 minutes of length, and respond (in at least a vague way) the idea of the Gowanus Canal or the procession itself. The monstrous, the mutated, the polluted, the toxic, the abject, aquatic life, industrial throughways, lost causes, mob deaths, gonorrhea, gentrification, ritual, religion, folklore, martyrdom, the spectacular… the list goes on. Works could be talks, performances, screenings, spectacles, projections, and more. The venue has a projector, and we will be given a small stage. We also need help with sets, props and costumes for the procession, so if you are interested in that, let us know!

Fritz Kahn (1888–1968), a German-Jewish physician-author, was the first great exponent of the conceptual medical illustration—illustrations that go beyond the representation of human anatomy to visually explain processes that occur within the human body. His published works, aimed at a mass readership, contain thousands of imaginative images, produced by a cadre of talented commercial artists. In Kahn’s Das Leben des Menschen (5 vols., 1922–31), many of the illustrations copy the look of contem­porary advertisement, with display type, sub­headings, physically attractive models, etc. But they are not intended to sell a product: instead the human body, its structure and functions, are what’s advertised.

In Der Mensch Gesund und Krank (2 vols., 1939) the figures are mainly given a standard format that no longer permits headline-style display type within the frame of the illustration. This greater design consistency made for a more streamlined modern look. But Kahn never fully embraced consistency in presentation: he and his artists still eclectically borrowed from a variety of advertising design and illustration methods and subjects.That approach was not invented by Kahn and his artists. Anti-tuberculosis, pure food, sani­tary cleanliness and anti-venereal dis­ease cam­paigns before, during and after World War I, were already using tech­niques of adver­tis­ing, with varying degrees of artfulness, in Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States and other coun­tries. But in Kahn’s books lessons on anatomy, physiology, microbiology and path­ology take center-stage without any directly instrumental purpose.

Take for example “The Sensory Organs of the Head,” which uses the encircled face of a beautiful woman to present a lesson on cellular physiology and the senses. The setting is the home (then accounted as “woman’s sphere”). Haloed by a circular band around her head, the female figure resembles a Holly­wood starlet. Within the spotlight, her head is tilted back and lips parted slightly. The pose is ambivalent: Is she overwhelmed, frightened, on the edge of sexual arousal? None of these are particularly relevant to the lesson at hand, but all of them are relevant to the aims of the author and his artist, which is to get the reader to pay attention to the image. The illustration mimics con­tem­porary movie posters, glamor magazines and cosmetics ad­ver­tise­­ments. The glamor girl is bom­bard­ed with the prolife­rating sensual experi­ences of modern­ity. The spe­­cialized sensory re­ceptor cells seem to be shoot­ing out along radiating dashed line-tracks launched from the tech­nolo­gies, com­mod­i­ties and experiences of everyday life. Heat is repre­sen­t­ed by a steam radia­tor; sound by a phono­graph; light an electric lamp; cold a draft coming through an open win­dow. The cells, like futuristic aliens or sur­realist­ic­al­ly distorted spermatozoa, seem to be attacking, pushing to penetrate the protective circle to gain access to the female sub­ject and achieve “the reception of stimuli arising at a distance.”
Everything about “The Sensory Organs of the Head” tells the reader that we are in the modern world, but the aesthetic of the image comes entirely out of commercial advertising, and not modern art.

In other illustrations, especially in the 1930s, Kahn’s artists were influenced by modern art and modernist poster and magazine advertisement. There was a two-way traffic in images: phar­ma­­ceutical manufac­turers were mak­ing illustr­ated ads that took up some of the same themes that Kahn fea­tured—images showing stylized interior pathways of the respiratory and digestive systems. A few years after the publication of Kahn’s 1926 color poster “Der Mensch als Industrie­pa­l­ast” (a collaboration with uncredited artist Fritz Schüler), Chem­ische Fabrik Promonta GmbH hired Kahn and Schüler to produce similar illustrations for advertisements for their pharmaceutical products.

The convergence of advertising illustration and fine art—the dynamic exchange of stylistic moves and aesthetic principles—is now so familiar to us, so pervasive, as to almost be invisible. We expect such things. But in the 1920s and ‘30s, this was something new and powerful, a way for Kahn, his artists, his readers—and commercial advertisers—to be modern and more modern still. Kahn’s images signify a condition of life and an aspiration: if humanity lived in the modern world of cars, machines, mass media, and proliferating advertisements, then such things were also inside of us. We are modern at the physiological core of embodied existence.

Michael Sappol is a historian in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine. This blogpost is adapted from Michael Sappol’s new book, How to Get Modern with Scientific Illustration(forthcoming, University of Minnesota Press, 2016)

Image List

An illustration that adopts the form of an advertisement. “The digestive zones in this area are: saliva–alkaline; gastric juices–acidic; pancreatic secretions–alkaline; colonic fermentation–acidic.” Das Leben des Menschen Vol. 3, 1926

In its composition, shaded textures and treatment of the figure (the lips!), an illustration that looks very much like a contemporary poster graphic. “Four ways to deliver drugs” [oral, intravenous, intramuscular, suppository]. Der Mensch Gesund und Krank Vol. 1, 1939

Monday, July 13, 2015

Morbid Anatomy Reader Brittany Bennett created a life sized contemporary flap anatomy based on her love of the work of Johan Remmelin. You can see images above and a description of the project below. You can see more of her work by clicking here.

I'm a recent graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts pursuing a career in medical illustration. I wanted to share my thesis project with Morbid Anatomy since it is deeply influenced by my passionate study of anatomy, dissection, medical art history, and medical museums. Also because Morbid Anatomy was one of the first resources I looked at when I started to consider medical illustration. For my project I created an interactive anatomical flap mannequin that it is entirely hand drawn and life size.

The inspiration for this project came from my experience drawing from cadavers and viewing Johan Remmelin's anatomical fap book (1617) which I saw during my internship with Librarian, Annie Brogan, at the Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mütter Museum.